


Rue the Day

by AmaraqWolf



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 21:06:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2243502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmaraqWolf/pseuds/AmaraqWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world isn't really in tatters, but it feels like it is. Sure, they managed to save it, but they lost too much along the way.</p>
<p>It's time to fix that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This work contains <b>massive spoilers</b> for <b>Book 9:</b> The Dying of the Light. It also uses characters and situations which have been touched upon in both my previous fics, and purplejabberwocky's. It's written as a continuation of purplejabberwocky's <i>Unravelled on the knife-edge</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rue the Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [purplejabberwocky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplejabberwocky/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Unravelled on the knife-edge](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2243328) by [purplejabberwocky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplejabberwocky/pseuds/purplejabberwocky). 



It was incredibly irritating, how uncomplicated hatred could be until the person it was directed towards was dead.

But then, to the general public, Ravel wasn’t just _dead_. He was gone. Erased. Whatever happened to souls after death, it wasn’t meant to happen to his. Something about that was unfair, and it had nothing to do with a chance for redemptive acceptance into Heaven. Or Hell, for that matter.

Saracen and Skulduggery were the last Dead Men standing after the battle was over and rebuilding had begun. Skulduggery was, of course, more suited to the organic clean-up – chasing down the last of the Remnants which had escaped Darquesse’s murderous grasp, rounding up escaped prisoners, arresting those who needed to be arrested. Saracen thought about helping him, and then decided against it. With Valkyrie Cain having vanished completely, Skulduggery spent most of his time in silent reverie, and Saracen didn’t want the reminder that he was no longer one of the most important people in the surviving Dead Men’s lives.

He shouldn’t have survived at all, anyway. Most of Saracen’s reputation as a Dead Man was completely made up.

So yes, he hated Ravel. More than he could find the words for. But Skulduggery told Saracen about Ravel’s final moments in the Accelerator – his words, his behaviour, his fear of being _forgiven_. His fear of someone who wasn’t there. Whether that was because the skeleton thought Saracen deserved to know, or because he’d worked out what Saracen’s magic was, Saracen didn’t know; but it made hating Ravel much, much harder than it used to be.

It also gave Saracen an idea.

He waited until he knew no one else would be in the Old Sanctuary’s lower levels, and then he went there himself, slipping through the dark stone corridors abandoned since the battle. By the time he should have been greeted by the hum of the Accelerator, he stopped and spoke into the gloom. “Engineer?”

“I am in here,” came the synthetically smooth reply.

Good. Saracen stepped into the Accelerator Room, pausing only to glance up at the quiet machine. It loomed over him in the darkness, giant and terrifying. Then he turned to look at the Engineer, who stood unobtrusively in the corner.

“Has anyone been down here since Ravel was killed?” Saracen asked.

“Miss Sorrows,” the Engineer replied. “She came to ensure the Accelerator was properly deactivated, and then she told me to wait for further instructions.”

Instructions which would take weeks to come, if they came at all. Saracen nodded. “Okay. I want you to turn it back on.”

“That would require the use of another soul, willingly given, in order to deactivate –”

“I know. I know all that.” Saracen ran both hands through his hair, focussing on taking long deep breaths. If he second-guessed himself now, he would never go through with it. “Engineer, I can rewind time.”

“That is a unique ability,” the robot responded without a single shred of surprise.

“I know. Only for a few minutes at a time. A few days, if I’m lucky. And I’m the only one who remembers the changes.”

“That puts a significant amount of responsibility on your shoulders, Mr Rue.”

“Don’t I know it.” Saracen almost laughed. The trick wasn’t in trying to change the things which went wrong. The trick was in accepting that you couldn’t change _everything_ , or even come close to it. Saracen had centuries to learn those differences and accept them, but no one else had. He’d only ever told one of his best friends the secret, back during the war, and now? Now he was opening up to a robot.

If ever he’d been more desperate…

“Listen,” he said, “I need you to turn that Accelerator on. I can use it to go back much, much further than only a few days. When I do, it’ll be as though I never used the Accelerator at all, which should cancel out the need for a soul willingly given. Am I right?”

The Engineer was worryingly silent for a full minute before he spoke again. “Yes.”

“Good.”

“I should point out, however, that sorcerers who use the Accelerator are driven mad by the exponential increase in power.”

“That’s a risk I’m going to have to take,” Saracen muttered. “Can you make the increase temporary?”

“No.”

“But it fades after a few months, doesn’t it?”

“That is true.”

“So I’ll be okay?”

“No.”

Of course not. An insane overpowered sorcerer could do a lot of damage in three months. Saracen looked back at the Accelerator, trying not to think about his father’s soul being inside it, saving Ravel’s. Protecting it. Protecting the soul of a killer. “Is there anything you can do to minimise that risk?”

“I increased Mr Pleasant’s power by a factor of sixty-four percent, instead of one hundred percent.”

Saracen stared at him. “You did what?”

“I increased Mr Pleasant’s power by –”

“Why? How? When?”

“Before the battle with Darquesse,” said the Engineer in that unnaturally smooth voice of his. “He accelerated a set of necromantic armour by a factor of sixty-four percent, and then stored the armour within himself.”

Saracen cursed, loudly, without stopping. When he was done, he blinked, and jumped back ninety seconds to erase that purely self-indulgent lapse of judgement. “Right. Okay. Can you restrict the power to the Accelerator so it doesn’t supercharge me as much as it could?”

“Certainly.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“Would you like me to start the process now?”

Saracen opened his mouth to say _no_ , because he wasn’t ready. Because there were things he needed to do first. And then he hesitated.

What things?

He could talk to Skulduggery about being a reckless idiot, but then he’d have to explain how he knew about Vile from the start, and the skeleton wouldn’t remember the conversation anyway. He could ask China for permission, but that would be stupid. He could go home and close the drapes, lock the windows, forward the mail. But he wasn’t leaving on a holiday; he was _going back in time_.

And there was nothing stopping him from going right now. Nothing but his own misgivings.

Saracen swallowed and nodded. “Yes. Please.”

The Engineer turned slightly, and the large Accelerator lit up and began to spin. The movement was slow and ponderous at first, but it wasn’t long before that signature hum echoed around the large chamber again. Saracen waited, his back to it and watching the door, just in case the Accelerator’s activation alerted anyone. But the door stayed closed, and his plan remained intact.

“It’s ready,” said the Engineer.

Saracen turned again. “How long until it overloads and destroys the world?”

“Three hundred and ninety days, twelve hours, and six minutes.”

“Oh. Well. Guess I don’t have to worry about that, then.”

“Not as long as it works.”

Saracen hesitated. “Is there a chance it won’t?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent.”

“Then why did you say ‘not as long as it works’?”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“It’s a very strange figure of speech to use in a situation like this.”

“I’m sorry,” said the Engineer without a trace of consternation. “I’ll endeavour to change my programming for the future.”

“You do that.” Saracen watched the Engineer suspiciously for a moment longer, and then he took another deep breath and turned to face the Accelerator.

It was a weapon. It was the weapon Skulduggery used to murder Ravel, the weapon Argeddion was rendered comatose with, the weapon they’d used to supercharge their sorcerers for fighting the Warlocks with. The ultimate Doomsday device. If this worked, then Saracen would be using it to _save_ the world. That, he thought, would be a fitting end to its tale of tragedy.

He stepped up to it, paused, let his stomach finish tying itself into knots. Then he stepped inside.


End file.
